Books by Gary Graybill

Friday, September 30, 2011

Gibbs' Rules

I confess. I am an avid fan of NCIS. I look forward to each weeks episode as a fun escape from the daily drag. One of the fun things in the show is “Gibbs Rules”, an unwritten set of rules for the NCIS agents to live by. We get to hear them applied in various shows, and we know they originated with Mike Franks (Gibbs’ friend and mentor). Those rules have always fascinated me, so I decided to turn to Google and see if I could find out if they even existed. It turns out that some people are way ahead of me and have compiled a list based on various episodes where the famous “rules” have been applied.

So, for all you fellow NCIS devotees, here is a list of the rules which have been reveled so far. (For those of you who are not fans of NCIS this will be boring and meaningless, you’ll just have to indulge us “entertainmently challenged" folks) Oh, you will notice that the same rule numbers were used for different rules in separate episodes (that’s ok, just blame it on the writers).

Rule #6: Never apologize — Its a sign of weakness. A rule used more often than the others, but finally given a number in 7x12 'Flesh and Blood' during a great Gibbs/DiNozzo moment.

The first person to use that phrase was John Wayne in, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." "Never apologize, mister, it. It's a sign of weakness." — In the episode 3x23 'Hiatus Part-1' DiNozzo explains to NCIS Director, Jenny Shepard, that Gibbs took this one from "The Duke himself."